Andy Rankin

I was reading a post from Seth Godin’s blog last night and in a round about way it was describing something I’ve been thinking about lately. My thoughts also were in line with Kevin Kelleher’s post on GigaOM about Amazon Prime.

I shop online for three main reasons:

1. Better deals (can I get it for cheaper online)
2. Convenience
3. I hate going to the store (similar to convenience but not quite the same)

I used to search around for unknown online retailers that were willing to sell me the product for a few bucks less than the usual crowd (Amazon, Buy.com, etc.). But I got sick and tired of the crazy shipping and handling fees (I’m talking about you, eCOST.com). And it’s not just the fees themselves, it’s the fact that they don’t crop up until you’re halfway through the checkout process! The killer ones are the sites that ask you for credit card info before showing you the shipping costs - it’s been a couple of years since I’ve bothered with those.

With Amazon Prime you know the price you’re looking at is the price you’ll pay. The stuff will be delivered quickly. You pay the annual fee once and then forget that you paid it - so you don’t bother to factor in the fractional cost (okay, that’s kind of tricky - but I buy a bunch of stuff for work and so we easily get our money’s worth).

It’s really not the “free shipping” nature of Amazon Prime that wins me over (afterall, it’s not actually free) but rather the fact that you know going into it how much the shipping will cost. I know other places have flat, published, shipping fees (I’m talking about you, woot!) and I do a decent amount of shopping there too. I can even handle variable shipping costs - if you give me an easy way to find out what it’s going to be (punch in my zip code - that should do it).

I’ll save my issues with rebates for a different day.